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Posted on: Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Alabama Chanin and Heath Ceramics collaboration

It was a beautifully dewy evening in NYC last night – a great conclusion to my first day back in the U.S. after living for close to a year in Eastern Europe. I might have seemed a bit odd in conversation and wide-eyed to some while soaking up Alabama Chanin's MAKESHIFT event at The Standard, East Village hotel. I was honestly feeling rather jet-lagged and also overwhelmed by the creative embrace of so many good friends and new faces at this much-anticipated design week gathering.

I will write more about the hands-on making and collective sharing that will take place in a round table sewing circle on Friday with Chanin and invited friends. But for now, the idea that I want to share with you and encourage you to consider is the revival of the hum.

Edith Heath, founder of Heath Ceramics, feels and hears the hum

Cathy Bailey of Heath Ceramics described for us how the sound of humming wheels and activity really went to her core when she visited this Sausalito-based ceramics studio/facility before taking it on as a business. Creating, producing, and finessing surfaces by hand and under one roof is a process like no other.

Consider also the humming that occurs when you are merrily crafting, cooking, mending, or dreaming about something that makes you profoundly happy – busy to the gills but content with doing the work at hand. "Loving one's thread" if you will, or simply connecting with the pure ingredients in hand.

Art, design and fashion – as businesses can be downright daunting, often stagnant, and increasingly serve as "enterprises" that steer us way off course, both culturally and environmentally. Consider the possibility, though, of using "humming" as your constant navigation tool with an underlying drone or harmonic platform that reminds you of who you are, where you come from, and where you need to go. The roadmap lyrics are always within you and the machine can sing a pretty tune if it is well-oiled to undergo makeshift or even sudden changes.

I say we hum like no other time in history. Bees do it until the sweet honey is ready. The hive is our home.